document_title: Musical theatre

question_text: the twentieth-century american composer associated with the golden age of musical theatre is

question_tokens: the twentieth-century american composer associated with the golden age of musical theatre is

text: Musical theatre

text: Definitions and scope[edit]

text: Book musicals[edit]

text: Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals that is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter.[2][3] The three main components of a book musical are its music, lyrics and book. The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "little book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and includes songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue."[4] The interpretation of a musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator. A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design, costumes, stage properties (props), lighting and sound. The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from the original production; for example, Bob Fosse's choreography in Chicago.

text: There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission, and the first act is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in the show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called "sung-through" musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables, Evita and Hamilton. Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in the West End have been presented in one act in recent decades.

text: Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance."[5] In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in the history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy: "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be."[6] Typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot.

text: The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels (Wicked and Man of La Mancha), plays (Hello, Dolly!), classic legends (Camelot), historical events (Evita) or films (The Producers and Billy Elliot). On the other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver! and Chicago.

text: Comparisons with opera[edit]

text: Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. This is not a hard and fast rule; some musicals are entirely accompanied and sung through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte, and most operettas, have some unaccompanied dialogue.  Second, musicals also usually include more dancing as an essential part of the storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles.[7]

text: Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of the actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context.[8]

text: Some works (e.g. by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim) have been made into both "musical theatre" and "operatic" productions.[9][10] Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as the work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls.[11] Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another."[12] Although this article primarily concerns musical theatre works that are "non-operatic", there remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera".[13]

text: Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra, located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra, musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only a few players. Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments,[14] and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments.[15] The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta, classical techniques, folk music, jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting."[4] Musicals may begin with an overture played by the orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies."[16]

text: Other forms[edit]

text: There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera, Taiwanese opera, Noh and Musical theatre in India, including Sanskrit drama, classical Indian dance and Yakshagana.[17]  India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as "Bollywood" musicals, and in Japan a series of musicals based on popular Anime and Manga comics has developed in recent decades.  Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals.[18][19]

text: History[edit]

text: Early antecedents of musical theatre[edit]

text: The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece, where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during the 5th century BCE.[20] The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre.[21] In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy. Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies.[22]

text: The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte, where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa. In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music,[23] and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments.[24] Court masques developed during the Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design.[25][26] These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656).[27] In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully) and dance in the late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera[28] by composers such as John Blow[29] and Henry Purcell.[27]

text: From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas, like John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime, which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on the continent, singspiel, comédie en vaudeville, opéra comique, zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s.[30] Other musical theatre forms developed in England by the 19th century, such as music hall, melodrama and burletta, which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music.

text: Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis.[31] In New York in the summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera, and ballad-farces.[31] By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan.[32] Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime,[21] but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment."[33] Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850, and did not arrive in the Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. Broadway's The Elves (1857) broke the 50 performance barrier. New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances.[34]

text: 1850s to 1880s[edit]

text: Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette.[35] The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from the 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s.[21] Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed.[35] Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques, music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s.[36]

text: In America, mid-18th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue, which eventually developed into vaudeville, minstrel shows, which soon crossed the Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes.[21] A hugely successful musical that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook, was an original musical theatre piece that conformed to many of the modern definitions of a musical, including dance and original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances.[37] The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 (The Mulligan Guard Picnic) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from the everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward towards a more legitimate theatrical form. They starred high quality singers (Lillian Russell, Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms.

text: As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878.[30] English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885).[35] These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise the standard for what was considered a successful show.[38] These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment.[36] Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado, such as Dorothy, which opened in 1886 and set a new record with a run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story.[39][40] Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain[41][42] and America.[38][43]

text: 1890s to the new century[edit]

text: A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with a few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s.[30] Gilbert and Sullivan were both pirated and imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of the minstrel shows), followed by ragtime-tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley, including those by George M. Cohan, who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours.[44]

text: Meanwhile, musicals took over the London stage in the Gay Nineties, led by producer George Edwardes, who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy-style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on the traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll, Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton. These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away the earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success.

text: The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910).[45]

text: Early 20th century[edit]

text: Virtually eliminated from the English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow, and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I.[46] In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910).

text: In the 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan, created the "Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs.[39] Historian Gerald Bordman wrote:

text: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within the limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse, the most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day.[47]

text: The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I, and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938.[48] The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of the Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow. Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years.[49] Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular.[33]

text: The musicals of the Roaring Twenties, borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally, Lady, Be Good, No, No, Nanette, Oh, Kay! and Funny Face. Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart. Popular music was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as "Fascinating Rhythm", "Tea for Two" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". Many shows were revues, series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies, spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls.[21] These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting a musical generally became more expensive.[33] Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show was a hit on Broadway.[50] A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg, to create a series of popular Broadway hits.[51]

text: In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from the 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by a musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition."[52] In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps.[53]

text: Show Boat and the Great Depression[edit]

text: Progressing far beyond the comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927), represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II. One historian wrote, "Here we come to a completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity."[54]

text: As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat, the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment.[47] Audiences on both sides of the Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years, while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create a series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger, the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added DuBarry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting a new Broadway record.[48]

text: Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat's innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize.[21][55] As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked the first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters, starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included "Supper Time", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched.[56] The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles, was a highly political pro-union piece that, despite the controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances.[33] Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Kurt Weill's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions.

text: The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s.[57] Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and the sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott.[21]

text: The Golden Age (1940s to 1960s)[edit]

text: The 1940s would begin with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air.

text: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1943) completed the revolution begun by Show Boat, by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage.[3] Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille, who used everyday motions to help the characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize.[58] Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that the show's opening number changed the history of musical theater: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable."[59] It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this was a "show, that, like Show Boat, became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma!"[60]

text: "After Oklahoma!, Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided the necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own".[54] The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows: the villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath with a fondness for lewd post cards; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat; and the hero of The King and I dies onstage.

text: The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in the "Golden Age" of American musical theatre.[59] Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives the impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane, E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances).  The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from a love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made.[61]

text: Damon Runyon's eclectic characters were at the core of Frank Loesser's and Abe Burrows' Guys and Dolls, (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show didn't discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, which at 2,717 performances held the long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. This surpassed the run of two hits by British creators: The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, was very briefly the third longest-running musical in West End or Broadway history (after Chu Chin Chow and Oklahoma!), until Salad Days (1954) surpassed its run and became the new long-run record holder, with 2,283 performances.[49]

text: Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera, which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming the longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks. The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 Off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine, The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love, a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest.[62]

text: West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim. It was embraced by the critics, but failed to be a popular choice for the "blue-haired matinee ladies", who preferred the small town River City, Iowa of Meredith Willson's The Music Man to the alleys of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Apparently Tony Award voters were of a similar mind, since they favored the former over the latter. West Side Story had a respectable run of 732 performances (1,040 in the West End), while The Music Man ran nearly twice as long, with 1,375 performances. However, the film of West Side Story was extremely successful.[63]  Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959, 702 performances), with Jule Styne providing the music for a backstage story about the most driven stage mother of all-time, stripper Gypsy Rose Lee's mother Rose. The original production ran for 702 performances, and was given four subsequent revivals, with Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone later tackling the role made famous by Ethel Merman.

text: Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century,[64] George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age.[65]  Abbott introduced ballet as a story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma!.[66]  After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits.  He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975).  Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion, Tommy Tune, Michael Bennett, Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman.  Prominent directors have included Hal Prince, who also got his start with Abbott,[65] and Trevor Nunn.[67]

text: During the Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals, private shows only seen by their employees or customers.[68][69]  The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein's last hit, The Sound of Music, which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version, it has become one of the most popular musicals in history.

text: In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village, becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do!, the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see a number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret, before ending with the emergence of the rock musical. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman.

text: The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, starring Zero Mostel. Sondheim moved the musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources: the opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990).

text: While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as the interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse (Merrily We Roll Along) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle, in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad.

text: Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about the founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores (Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including "Hello, Dolly!", "We Need a Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong, Eydie Gormé, Barbra Streisand, Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003).

text:
"Aquarius"

"Aquarius", chorus from the original Broadway cast of Hair
Problems playing this file? See media help.

text: The musical started to diverge from the relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair, which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War, race relations and other social issues.[70]

text: Social themes[edit]

text: After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess, and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific. Towards the end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof, Milk and Honey, Blitz! and later Rags. The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic. The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict was fresher.[71]

text: Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair.[72] Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair, and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles, Falsettos, Rent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America.

text: 1970s to present[edit]

text: After the success of Hair, rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, The Rocky Horror Show, Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona. Some of those began with "concept albums" and then moved to film or stage, such as Tommy. Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas. Shows like Raisin, Dreamgirls, Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway.  At the same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above.

text: In 1975, the dance musical A Chorus Line emerged from recorded group therapy-style sessions Michael Bennett conducted with "gypsies" – those who sing and dance in support of the leading players – from the Broadway community. From hundreds of hours of tapes, James Kirkwood Jr. and Nick Dante fashioned a book about an audition for a musical, incorporating many real-life stories from the sessions; some who attended the sessions eventually played variations of themselves or each other in the show. With music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban, A Chorus Line first opened at Joseph Papp's Public Theater in lower Manhattan. What initially had been planned as a limited engagement eventually moved to the Shubert Theatre on Broadway[73] for a run of 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time. The show swept the Tony Awards and won the Pulitzer Prize, and its hit song, What I Did for Love, became a standard.[74]

text: Broadway audiences welcomed musicals that varied from the golden age style and substance. John Kander and Fred Ebb explored the rise of Nazism in Germany in Cabaret, and murder and the media in Prohibition-era Chicago, which relied on old vaudeville techniques. Pippin, by Stephen Schwartz, was set in the days of Charlemagne. Federico Fellini's autobiographical film 8½ became Maury Yeston's Nine. At the end of the decade, Evita and Sweeney Todd were precursors of the darker, big budget musicals of the 1980s that depended on dramatic stories, sweeping scores and spectacular effects. At the same time, old-fashioned values were still embraced in such hits as Annie, 42nd Street, My One and Only, and popular revivals of No, No, Nanette and Irene.  Although many film versions of musicals were made in the 1970s, few were critical or box office successes, with the notable exceptions of Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret and Grease.[75]

text: The 1980s saw the influence of European "mega-musicals", or "pop operas", on Broadway, in the West End and elsewhere. These typically featured a pop-influenced score, had large casts and sets and were identified by their notable effects – a falling chandelier (in The Phantom of the Opera), a helicopter landing on stage (in Miss Saigon) – and big budgets. Many were based on novels or other works of literature. The most important writers of mega-musicals include the French team of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, responsible for Les Misérables, which became the longest-running international musical hit in history. The team, in collaboration with Richard Maltby Jr., continued to produce hits, including Miss Saigon, inspired by the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly.

text: The British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber saw similar success with Evita, based on the life of Argentina's Eva Perón; Cats, derived from the poems of T. S. Eliot (both of which musicals originally starred Elaine Paige); Starlight Express, performed on roller skates; The Phantom of the Opera, derived from the Gaston Leroux novel, "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra"; and Sunset Boulevard (from the classic film of the same name).  These works ran (or are still running) for decades in both New York and London and had extraordinary international and touring success.  The mega-musicals' huge budgets redefined expectations for financial success on Broadway and in the West End. In earlier years, it was possible for a show to be considered a hit after a run of several hundred performances, but with multimillion-dollar production costs, a show must run for years simply to turn a profit.

text: In the 1990s, a new generation of theatrical composers emerged, including Jason Robert Brown and Michael John LaChiusa, who began with productions Off-Broadway.  The most conspicuous success of these artists was Jonathan Larson's show Rent (1996), a rock musical  (based on the opera La bohème) about a struggling community of artists in Manhattan.  While the cost of tickets to Broadway and West End musicals was escalating beyond the budget of many theatregoers, Rent was marketed to increase the popularity of musicals among a younger audience.  It featured a young cast and a heavily rock-influenced score; the musical became a hit.  Its young fans, many of them students, calling themselves RENTheads], camped out at the Nederlander Theatre in hopes of winning the lottery for $20 front row tickets, and some saw the show dozens of times.  Other shows on Broadway followed Rent's lead by offering heavily discounted day-of-performance or standing-room tickets, although often the discounts are offered only to students.[76]

text: The 1990s also saw the influence of large corporations on the production of musicals. The most important has been Disney Theatrical Productions, which began adapting some of Disney's animated film musicals for the stage, starting with Beauty and the Beast (1994), The Lion King (1997) and Aida (2000), the latter two with music by Elton John. The Lion King is the highest-grossing musical in Broadway history.[77] The Who's Tommy (1993), a theatrical adaptation of the rock opera Tommy, achieved a healthy run of 899 performances but was criticized for sanitizing the story and "musical theatre-izing" the rock music.[78]

text: Despite the growing number of large-scale musicals in the 1980s and 1990s, a number of lower-budget, smaller-scale musicals managed to find critical and financial success, such as Falsettoland and Little Shop of Horrors, Bat Boy: The Musical and Blood Brothers. The topics of these pieces vary widely, and the music ranges from rock to pop, but they often are produced off-Broadway, or for smaller London theatres, and some of these stagings have been regarded as imaginative and innovative.[79]

text: Trends[edit]

text: In the new century, familiarity has been embraced by producers and investors anxious to guarantee that they recoup their considerable investments. Some took (usually modest-budget) chances on new and creative material, such as Urinetown (2001), Avenue Q (2003), The Light in the Piazza (2005), Spring Awakening (2006), In the Heights (2007), Next to Normal (2009), American Idiot (2010) and The Book of Mormon (2011). Hamilton (2015), transformed "under-dramatized American history" into an unusual hip-hop inflected hit.[80] In 2011, Sondheim argued that of all forms of "contemporary pop music", rap was "the closest to traditional musical theatre" and was "one pathway to the future."[81]

text: However, most major-market 21st-century productions have taken a safe route, with revivals of familiar fare, such as Fiddler on the Roof, A Chorus Line, South Pacific, Gypsy, Hair, West Side Story and Grease, or with adaptations of other proven material, such as literature (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Wicked and Fun Home), hoping that the shows would have a built-in audience as a result. This trend is especially persistent with film adaptations, including (The Producers, Spamalot, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, The Color Purple, Xanadu, Billy Elliot, Shrek, Waitress and Groundhog Day).[82] Some critics have argued that the reuse of film plots, especially those from Disney (such as Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid), equate the Broadway and West End musical to a tourist attraction, rather than a creative outlet.[33]

text: Today, it is less likely that a sole producer, such as David Merrick or Cameron Mackintosh, backs a production. Corporate sponsors dominate Broadway, and often alliances are formed to stage musicals, which require an investment of $10 million or more. In 2002, the credits for Thoroughly Modern Millie listed ten producers, and among those names were entities composed of several individuals.[83] Typically, off-Broadway and regional theatres tend to produce smaller and therefore less expensive musicals, and development of new musicals has increasingly taken place outside of New York and London or in smaller venues. For example, Spring Awakening, Fun Home and Hamilton were developed Off-Broadway before being launched on Broadway.

text: Several musicals returned to the spectacle format that was so successful in the 1980s, recalling extravaganzas that have been presented at times, throughout theatre history, since the ancient Romans staged mock sea battles. Examples include the musical adaptations of Lord of the Rings (2007), Gone with the Wind (2008) and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (2011).  These musicals involved songwriters with little theatrical experience, and the expensive productions generally lost money. Conversely, The Drowsy Chaperone, Avenue Q, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Xanadu and Fun Home, among others, have been presented in smaller-scale productions, mostly uninterrupted by an intermission, with short running times, and enjoyed financial success. In 2013, Time magazine reported that a trend Off-Broadway has been "immersive" theatre, citing shows such as Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2012) and Here Lies Love (2013) in which the staging takes place around and within the audience.[84] The shows set a joint record, each receiving 11 nominations for Lucille Lortel Awards,[85] and feature contemporary scores.[86][87]

text: In 2013, Cyndi Lauper was the "first female composer to win the [Tony for] Best Score without a male collaborator" for writing the music and lyrics for Kinky Boots. In 2015, for the first time, an all-female writing team, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, won the Tony Award for Best Original Score (and Best Book for Kron) for Fun Home,[88] although work by male songwriters continues to be produced more often.[89]

text: Jukebox musicals[edit]

text: Another trend has been to create a minimal plot to fit a collection of songs that have already been hits. Following the earlier success of Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, these have included Movin' Out (2002, based on the tunes of Billy Joel), Jersey Boys (2006, The Four Seasons), Rock of Ages (2009, featuring classic rock of the 1980s) and many others. This style is often referred to as the "jukebox musical".[90] Similar but more plot-driven musicals have been built around the canon of a particular pop group including Mamma Mia! (1999, based on the songs of ABBA), Our House (2002, based on the songs of Madness) and We Will Rock You (2002, based on the songs of Queen).

text: Film and TV musicals[edit]

text: Live-action film musicals were nearly dead in the 1980s and early 1990s, with exceptions of Victor/Victoria, Little Shop of Horrors and the 1996 film of Evita.[91] In the new century, Baz Luhrmann began a revival of the film musical with Moulin Rouge! (2001). This was followed by Chicago (2002); Phantom of the Opera (2004); Dreamgirls (2006); Hairspray, Enchanted and Sweeney Todd (all in 2007); Mamma Mia! (2008); Nine (2009); Les Misérables and Pitch Perfect (both in 2012), Into The Woods (2014) and La La Land (2016), among others. Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2000) and The Cat in the Hat (2003), turned children's books into live-action film musicals. After the immense success of Disney and other houses with animated film musicals beginning with The Little Mermaid in 1989 and running throughout the 1990s (including some more adult-themed films, like South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)), fewer animated film musicals were released in the first decade of the 21st century.[91] The genre made a comeback beginning in 2010 with Tangled (2010), Rio (2011) and Frozen (2013).  In Asia, India continues to produce numerous "Bollywood" film musicals, and Japan produces "Anime" and "Manga" film musicals.

text: Made for TV musical films were popular in the 1990s, such as Gypsy (1993), Cinderella (1997) and Annie (1999). Several made for TV musicals in the first decade of the 21st century were adaptations of the stage version, such as South Pacific (2001), The Music Man (2003) and Once Upon a Mattress (2005), and a televised version of the stage musical Legally Blonde in 2007. Additionally, several musicals were filmed on stage and broadcast on Public Television, for example Contact in 2002 and Kiss Me, Kate and Oklahoma! in 2003. The made-for-TV musical High School Musical (2006), and its several sequels, enjoyed particular success and were adapted for stage musicals and other media. In 2013, NBC began a series of live television broadcasts of musicals with The Sound of Music Live![92] Although the production received mixed reviews, it was a ratings success.[93] Further broadcasts have included Peter Pan Live! (NBC 2014), The Wiz Live! (NBC 2015),[94] a UK broadcast, The Sound of Music Live (ITV 2015)[95] and Grease: Live (Fox 2016).[96][97]

text: Some television shows have set episodes as a musical. Examples include episodes of Ally McBeal, Xena, Psych ("Psych: The Musical"), Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Once More, with Feeling"), That's So Raven, Daria, Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, The Flash, Once Upon a Time, Oz, Scrubs (one episode was written by the creators of Avenue Q), Batman: The Brave and the Bold ("Mayhem of the Music Meister") and That '70s Show (the 100th episode, "That '70s Musical"). Others have included scenes where characters suddenly begin singing and dancing in a musical-theatre style during an episode, such as in several episodes of The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Hannah Montana, South Park, Bob's Burgers and Family Guy.  The television series Cop Rock extensively used the musical format, as do the series Flight of the Conchords, Glee, Smash and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

text: There have also been musicals made for the internet, including Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, about a low-rent super-villain played by Neil Patrick Harris. It was written during the WGA writer's strike.[98] Since 2006, reality TV shows have been used to help market musical revivals by holding a talent competition to cast (usually female) leads. Examples of these are How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, Grease: You're the One That I Want!, Any Dream Will Do, Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods, I'd Do Anything and Over the Rainbow.

text: International musicals[edit]

text: The U.S. and Britain were the most active sources of book musicals from the 19th century through much of the 20th century (although Europe produced various forms of popular light opera and operetta, for example Spanish Zarzuela, during that period and even earlier). However, the light musical stage in other countries has become more active in recent decades.

text: Musicals from other English-speaking countries (notably Australia and Canada) often do well locally and occasionally even reach Broadway or the West End (e.g., The Boy from Oz and The Drowsy Chaperone). South Africa has an active musical theatre scene, with revues like African Footprint and Umoja and book musicals, such as Kat and the Kings and Sarafina! touring internationally. Locally, musicals like Vere, Love and Green Onions, Over the Rainbow: the all-new all-gay... extravaganza and Bangbroek Mountain and In Briefs – a queer little Musical have been produced successfully.

text: Successful musicals from continental Europe include shows from (among other countries) Germany (Elixier and Ludwig II), Austria (Tanz der Vampire, Elisabeth, Mozart! and Rebecca), Czech Republic (Dracula), France (Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Misérables, Roméo et Juliette and Mozart, l'opéra rock) and Spain (Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar and The Musical Sancho Panza).

text: Japan has recently seen the growth of an indigenous form of musical theatre, both animated and live action, mostly based on Anime and Manga, such as Kiki's Delivery Service and Tenimyu. The popular Sailor Moon metaseries has had twenty-nine Sailor Moon musicals, spanning thirteen years. Beginning in 1914, a series of popular revues have been performed by the all-female Takarazuka Revue, which currently fields five performing troupes. Elsewhere in Asia, the Indian Bollywood musical, mostly in the form of motion pictures, is tremendously successful.[99]

text: Hong Kong's first modern musical, produced in both  Cantonese and Mandarin, is Snow.Wolf.Lake (1997).  Beginning with a 2002 tour of Les Misérables, numerous Western musicals have been imported to mainland China and staged in English.[100]  Attempts at localizing Western productions in China began in 2008 when Fame was produced in Mandarin with a full Chinese cast at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing.[101] Since then, other western productions have been staged in China in Mandarin with a Chinese cast. The first Chinese production in the style of Western musical theatre was The Gold Sand in 2005.[100] In addition, Li Dun, a well-known Chinese producer, produced Butterflies, based on a classic Chinese love tragedy, in 2007 as well as Love U Teresa in 2011.[100]

text: Other countries with an especially active musicals scene include the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Russia and Turkey.[citation needed]

text: Amateur and school productions[edit]

text: Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces.[102][103] Although amateur theatre has existed for centuries, even in the New World,[104] François Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman wrote, in 1914, that prior to the late 19th century, amateur actors were treated with contempt by professionals. After the formation of amateur Gilbert and Sullivan companies licensed to perform the Savoy operas, professionals recognized that the amateur societies "support the culture of music and the drama. They are now accepted as useful training schools for the legitimate stage, and from the volunteer ranks have sprung many present-day favourites."[105] The National Operatic and Dramatic Association was founded in the UK in 1899. It reported, in 1914, that nearly 200 amateur dramatic societies were producing Gilbert and Sullivan works in Britain that year.[105] Similarly, more than 100 community theatres were founded in the US in the early 20th century. This number has grown to an estimated 18,000 in the US.[104] The Educational Theater Association in the US has nearly 5,000 member schools.[106]

text: Relevance[edit]

text: The Broadway League announced that in the 2007–08 season, 12.27 million tickets were purchased for Broadway shows for a gross sale amount of almost a billion dollars.[107] The League further reported that during the 2006–07 season, approximately 65% of Broadway tickets were purchased by tourists, and that foreign tourists were 16% of attendees.[108] The Society of London Theatre reported that 2007 set a record for attendance in London. Total attendees in the major commercial and grant-aided theatres in Central London were 13.6 million, and total ticket revenues were £469.7 million.[109] Also, the international musicals scene has been particularly active in recent years. Stephen Sondheim commented in the year 2000:

text: You have two kinds of shows on Broadway – revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for The Lion King a year in advance, and essentially a family ... pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is – a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. ... I don't think the theatre will die per se, but it's never going to be what it was.... It's a tourist attraction."[110]

text: However, noting the success in recent decades of original material, and creative re-imaginings of film, plays and literature, theatre historian John Kenrick countered:

text: Is the Musical dead? ... Absolutely not! Changing? Always! The musical has been changing ever since Offenbach did his first rewrite in the 1850s. And change is the clearest sign that the musical is still a living, growing genre. Will we ever return to the so-called 'golden age', with musicals at the center of popular culture? Probably not. Public taste has undergone fundamental changes, and the commercial arts can only flow where the paying public allows.[33]


document_title: The Song of Roland

question_text: where does the song of roland take place

root

text: The Song of Roland

text: Manuscripts and dating[edit]

text: Set in the Carolingian era, it was written much later. There is a single extant manuscript of the Song of Roland in Old French, held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford[2]. This copy dates between 1129 and 1165 and was written in Anglo-Norman.[3] There are also eight further manuscripts, and three fragments, of other poems on the subject of Roland.[4]

tag: p

text: Some scholars estimate that the poem was written, possibly by a poet named Turold (Turoldus in the manuscript itself), between approximately 1040 and 1115, and most of the alterations were performed by about 1098. Some favor an earlier dating, because it allows one to say that the poem was inspired by the Castilian campaigns of the 1030s, and that the poem went on to be a major influence in the First Crusade. Those who prefer a later dating do so based upon what they interpret as brief references made in the poem to events of the First Crusade.

text: In the poem, the term d'oltre mer or l'oltremarin comes up three times in reference to named Muslims who came from oltre mer to fight in Spain and France. Oltre mer, modern French Outremer, literally "oversea, beyond sea, other side of the sea", is a native French term from the classical Latin roots ultra = "beyond" and mare = "sea". The name was commonly used by the Crusaders to refer to Palestine.[citation needed]

text: The occurrence of this term in the poem cannot be interpreted as showing influence from the Crusades in the poem; on the contrary, the way it is used in the poem, in which it is simply a Muslim land, indicates that the author of the poem was unacquainted with the Crusades, and that the term was in French before the Crusades began meaning the far side of the Mediterranean Sea. The bulk of the poem is adjudged to date from before the Crusades (which started in 1098), but there are a few items where questions remain about these items being late additions shortly after the Crusades started.

text: After two manuscripts were found in 1832 and 1835, the Song of Roland became recognized as France's national epic when an edition was published in 1837.[5]

text: AOI[edit]

text: Certain lines of the Oxford manuscript end with the letters "AOI". The meaning of this word or annotation is unclear. Scholars have hypothesized that the marking may have played a role in public performances of the text, such as indicating a place where a jongleur would change the tempo.[6]

text: Critical opinions[edit]

text: Oral performance of the Song compared to manuscript versions[edit]

text: Scholarly consensus has long accepted that the Song of Roland differed in its presentation depending on oral or textual transmission; namely, although a number of different versions of the song containing varying material and episodes would have been performed orally, the transmission to manuscript resulted in greater cohesiveness across versions.

text: Early editors of the Song of Roland, informed in part by patriotic desires to produce a distinctly French epic, could thus overstate the textual cohesiveness of the Roland tradition. This point is expressed by Andrew Taylor, who notes,[7] "[T]he Roland song was, if not invented, at the very least constructed. By supplying it with an appropriate epic title, isolating it from its original codicological context, and providing a general history of minstrel performance in which its pure origin could be located, the early editors presented a 4,002 line poem as sung French epic".

text: Plot[edit]

text: Charlemagne's army is fighting the Muslims in Spain. They have been there for seven years, and the last city standing is Saragossa, held by the Muslim King Marsile. Threatened by the might of Charlemagne's army of Franks, Marsile seeks advice from his wise man, Blancandrin, who councils him to conciliate the Emperor, offering to surrender and giving hostages. Accordingly, Marsile sends out messengers to Charlemagne, promising treasure and Marsile's conversion to Christianity if the Franks will go back to France.

text: Charlemagne and his men, tired of fighting, accept his peace offer and select a messenger to Marsile's court. The protagonist Roland, Charlemagne's nephew, nominates his stepfather Ganelon as messenger. Ganelon, who fears to be murdered by the enemy and accuses Roland of intending this, takes revenge by informing the Saracens of a way to ambush the rear guard of Charlemagne's army, led by Roland, as the Franks re-enter France through the mountain passes.

text: As Ganelon predicted, Roland leads the rear guard, with the wise and moderate Oliver and the fierce Archbishop Turpin. The Muslims ambush them at Roncesvalles and the Christians are overwhelmed. Oliver pleads with Roland to blow his horn to call for help, but Roland tells him that blowing his horn in the middle of the battle would be an act of cowardice. If Roland continues to refuse, Oliver will not let Roland see his sister again whom Roland loves the most. However, Archbishop Turpin intervenes and tells them that the battle will be fatal for all of them and so instructs Roland to blow his horn oliphant (the word is an old alternative to "elephant", and was used to refer to a hunting horn made from an elephant tusk) to call for help from the Frankish army. The emperor hears the call on their way to France. Charlemagne and his noblemen gallop back even though Count Ganelon tries to trick them.

text: The Franks fight well, but are outnumbered, until almost all Roland's men are dead and he knows that Charlemagne's army can no longer save them. Despite this, he blows his olifant to summon revenge, until his temples burst and he dies a martyr's death. Angels take his soul to Paradise.

text: When Charlemagne and his men reach the battlefield, they find the dead bodies of Roland's men, who have been utterly annihilated. They pursue the Muslims into the river Ebro, where the Muslims drown. Meanwhile, Baligant, the powerful emir of Babylon, has arrived in Spain to help Marsile. His army encounters that of Charlemagne at Roncesvalles, where the Christians are burying and mourning their dead. Both sides fight valiantly. When Charlemagne kills Baligant, the Muslim army scatters and flees, leaving the Franks to conquer Saragossa. With Marsile's wife Bramimonde, Queen of Saragossa, Charlemagne and his men ride back to Aix, their capital in France.

text: The Franks discover Ganelon's betrayal and keep him in chains until his trial, where Ganelon argues that his action was legitimate revenge, not treason. While the council of barons assembled to decide the traitor's fate is initially swayed by this claim, partially out of fear of Ganelon's friend Pinabel who threatens to fight anyone who judges Ganelon guilty, one man, Thierry, argues that because Roland was serving Charlemagne when Ganelon delivered his revenge on him, Ganelon's action constitutes a betrayal.

text: Pinabel challenges Thierry to trial by combat. By divine intervention, Thierry kills Pinabel. By this the Franks are convinced of Ganelon's treason. Thus, he is torn apart by having four galloping horses tied one to each arm and leg and thirty of his relatives are hanged. Bramimonde converts to Christianity, her name changing to Juliana. While sleeping, Charlemagne is told by Gabriel to ride to help King Vivien and bemoans his life.

text: Form[edit]

text: The poem is written in stanzas of irregular length known as laisses. The lines are decasyllabic (containing ten syllables), and each is divided by a strong caesura which generally falls after the fourth syllable. The last stressed syllable of each line in a laisse has the same vowel sound as every other end-syllable in that laisse. The laisse is therefore an assonal, not a rhyming stanza.

text: On a narrative level, the Song of Roland features extensive use of repetition, parallelism, and thesis-antithesis pairs. Roland proposes Ganelon for the dangerous mission to Sarrogossa; Ganelon designates Roland to man the rearguard. Charlemagne is contrasted with Baligant.[8] Unlike later Renaissance and Romantic literature, the poem focuses on action rather than introspection. The characters are presented through what they do, not through what they think or feel.

text: The narrator gives few explanations for characters' behavior. The warriors are stereotypes defined by a few salient traits; for example, Roland is loyal and trusting while Ganelon, though brave, is traitorous and vindictive.

text: The narrator is openly biased towards the Franks. His moral view is very black-and-white: the Franks are good, and the pagans are bad.

text: The story moves at a fast pace, occasionally slowing down and recounting the same scene up to three times but focusing on different details or taking a different perspective each time. The effect is similar to a film sequence shot at different angles so that new and more important details come to light with each shot.

text: Characters[edit]

text: Principal characters[edit]

text:
Andriodos, helpless boy; despite the honor came from King Charlemagne.
Baligant, emir of Babylon; Marsile enlists his help against Charlemagne.
Blancandrin, wise pagan; suggests bribing Charlemagne out of Spain with hostages and gifts, and then suggests dishonouring a promise to allow Marsile's baptism
Bassalt, came from the name of rocks that are solid and may occur in the second phrase of the poem; captured the horse of the king.
Bramimonde, Queen of Saragossa, King Marsile's wife; captured and converted by Charlemagne after the city falls.
Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor; his forces fight the Saracens in Spain.
Ganelon, treacherous lord and Roland's stepfather who encourages Marsile to attack the French army.
King Marsile, Saracen king of Spain; Roland wounds him and he dies of his wound later.
Naimon, Charlemagne's trusted adviser.
Oliver, Roland's friend; mortally wounded by Margarice. He represents wisdom.
Roland, the hero of the Song; nephew of Charlemagne; leads the rear guard of the French forces; bursts his temples by blowing his olifant-horn, wounds from which he eventually dies facing the enemy's land.
Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, represents the force of the Church.

tag: ul

text: Secondary characters[edit]

text:
Aude, the fiancée of Roland and Oliver's sister
Basan, French baron, murdered while serving as Ambassador of Marsile.
Bérengier, one of the twelve paladins killed by Marsile’s troops; kills Estramarin; killed by Grandoyne.
Besgun, chief cook of Charlemagne's army; guards Ganelon after Ganelon's treachery is discovered.
Geboin, guards the French dead; becomes leader of Charlemagne's 2nd column.
Godefroy, standard bearer of Charlemagne; brother of Thierry, Charlemagne’s defender against Pinabel.
Grandoyne, fighter on Marsile’s side; son of the Cappadocian King Capuel; kills Gerin, Gerier, Berenger, Guy St. Antoine, and Duke Astorge; killed by Roland.
Hamon, joint Commander of Charlemagne's Eighth Division.
Lorant, French commander of one of the first divisions against Baligant; killed by Baligant.
Milon, guards the French dead while Charlemagne pursues the Saracen forces.
Ogier, a Dane who leads the third column in Charlemagne's army against Baligant's forces.
Othon, guards the French dead while Charlemagne pursues the Saracen forces.
Pinabel, fights for Ganelon in the judicial combat.
Thierry, fights for Charlemagne in the judicial combat.

text: Durandal[edit]

text: According to the Song of Roland, the legendary sword called Durandal was first given to Charlemagne by an angel. It contained one tooth of Saint Peter, blood of Saint Basil, hair of Saint Denis, and a piece of the raiment of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was supposedly the sharpest sword in all existence. In the story of the Song of Roland, the weapon is given to Roland, and he uses it to defend himself single-handedly against thousands of Muslim attackers. According to one 12th-century legend from the French town of Rocamadour, Roland threw the sword into a cliffside.[citation needed] You can still see a sword there, allegedly Durandal, embedded into the cliff-face.[citation needed]

text: Historical adaptations[edit]

text: A Latin poem, Carmen de Prodicione Guenonis, was composed around 1120, and a Latin prose version, Historia Caroli Magni (often known as "The Pseudo-Turpin") even earlier. Around 1170, a version of the French poem was translated into the Middle High German Rolandslied by Konrad der Pfaffe[8] (formerly thought to have been the author of the Kaiserchronik). In his translation Konrad replaces French topics with generically Christian ones. The work was translated into Middle Dutch in the 13th century.

text: It was also rendered into Occitan verse in the 14th- or 15th-century poem of Ronsasvals, which incorporates the later, southern aesthetic into the story. An Old Norse version of the Song of Roland exists as Karlamagnús saga, and a translation into the artificial literary language of Franco-Venetian is also known; such translations contributed to the awareness of the story in Italy. In 1516 Ludovico Ariosto published his epic Orlando Furioso, which deals largely with characters first described in the Song of Roland.

text: There is also Faroese adoption of this ballad named "Runtsivalstríðið" (Battle of Roncevaux).[9] The ballad is one of many sung during the Faroese folkdance tradition of chain dancing.

text: Modern adaptations[edit]

text: The Chanson de Roland has an important place in the background of Graham Greene's The Confidential Agent, published in 1939. The book's protagonist had been a Medieval scholar specialising in this work, until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War forced him to become a soldier and secret agent. Throughout the book, he repeatedly compares himself and other characters with the characters of "Roland". Particularly, the book includes a full two pages of specific commentary, which is relevant to its 20th-century plot line: "Oliver, when he saw the Saracens coming, urged Roland to blow his horn and fetch back Charlemagne – but Roland wouldn't blow. A big brave fool. In war one always chooses the wrong hero. Oliver should have been the hero of that song, instead of being given second place with the blood-thirsty Bishop Turpin.(...) In the Oxford version Oliver is reconciled in the end, he gives Roland his death-blow by accident, his eyes blinded by wounds. [But] the story had been tidied up. In truth, Oliver strikes his friend down in full knowledge – because of what he has done to his men, all the wasted lives. Oliver dies hating the man he loves – the big boasting courageous fool who was more concerned with his own glory than with the victory of his faith. This makes the story tragedy, not just heroics".[10]

text: It is also adapted by Stephen King, in the Dark Tower series in which Roland Deschain wishes to save the Dark Tower from the Crimson King.

text: The Song of Roland is part of the Matter of France (the Continental counterpart to the Arthurian legendarium known as the Matter of Britain), and related to Orlando Furioso. The names Roland and Orlando are cognates.

text: Emanuelle Luzzati’s animated short film, I paladini di Francia, together with Giulio Gianini, in 1960, was turned into the children’s picture-story book, with verse narrative, I Paladini de Francia ovvero il tradimento di Gano di Maganz, which translates literally as “The Paladins of France or the treachery of Gano of Maganz” (Ugo Mursia Editore, 1962). This was then republished, in English, as Ronald and the Wizard Calico (1969). The Picture Lion paperback edition (William Collins, London, 1973) is a paperback imprint of the Hutchinson Junior Books edition (1969), which credits the English translation to Hutchinson Junior Books.

text: Luzatti’s original verse story in Italian is about the plight of a beautiful maiden called Biancofiore – White Flower, or Blanchefleur – and her brave hero, Captain Rinaldo, and Ricardo and his paladins – the term used for Christian knights engaged in Crusades against the Saracens and Moors. Battling with these good people are the wicked Moors – North African Muslims and Arabs – and their Sultan, in Jerusalem. With the assistance of the wicked and treacherous magician, Gano of Maganz, Biancofiore is stolen from her fortress castle, and taken to become the reluctant wife of the Sultan. The catalyst for victory is the good magician, Urlubulu, who lives in a lake, and flies through the air on the back of his magic blue bird. The English translators, using the original illustrations, and the basic rhyme patterns, slightly simplify the plot, changing the Christians-versus-Muslim-Moors conflict into a battle between good and bad magicians and between golden knights and green knights. The French traitor in The Song of Roland, who is actually Roland’s cowardly step-father, is Ganelon – very likely the inspiration for Luzzati’s traitor and wicked magician, Gano. Orlando Furioso (literally, Furious or Enraged Orlando, or Roland), includes Orlando’s cousin, the paladin Rinaldo, who, like Orlando, is also in love with Angelica, a pagan princess. Rinaldo is, of course, the Italian equivalent of Ronald. Flying through the air on the back of a magic bird is equivalent to flying on a magic hippogriff.

text: On July 22, 2017, Michael Eging and Steve Arnold released a novel ″The Silver Horn Echoes: A Song of Roland," inspired by the La Chanson de Roland. This work is more closely based on a screenplay written by Michael Eging in 2008, simply known as "Song of Roland" and first optioned to Alan Kaplan at Cine LA that same year. The book explores the untold story of how Roland finds himself at Ronceveaux, betrayed by Ganelon and facing the expansive Saragossan host. Primary characters in the novel include Charles (Charlemagne), Ganelon, Bishop Turpin, Oliver, Aude, Marsilion, Blancandarin and others recognizable from the poem. Introduced in this tale are additional characters that inject intrigue and danger to the story, including Charles oldest son, Pepin, Marsilion's treacherous son, Saleem, and the scheming Byzantine emissary, Honorius. The cover artwork was hand painted by Jordan Raskin. The authors determined when writing both the screenplay and the novel to remain in the world created by the poem; thus Charles remains an older man near the end of his long reign rather than in 778 when the attack on the rearguard actually occurred. Further, this novel bookends the story with William the Conqueror's use of the poem as a motivator for Norman forces prior to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.[11]


document_title: Criminal Minds (season 13)

question_text: when is criminal minds season 13 coming out on dvd

text: Criminal Minds (season 13)

text: Cast[edit]

text: The entire main cast from the previous season returned for the season, except Damon Gupton (Stephen Walker), who was fired from the show.[4][5] His character was killed off in the season premiere off-screen.

text: Following the cancellation of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, it was announced that Daniel Henney (Matt Simmons) would join the cast this season as a series regular.[6]

text: Main cast[edit]

text:
Joe Mantegna as David Rossi
Matthew Gray Gubler as Dr. Spencer Reid
A. J. Cook as Jennifer "JJ" Jareau
Kirsten Vangsness as Penelope Garcia
Aisha Tyler as Dr. Tara Lewis
Daniel Henney as Matt Simmons
Adam Rodriguez as Luke Alvez
Paget Brewster as Emily Prentiss

text: Special guest star[edit]

text: Shemar Moore as Derek Morgan

text: Recurring cast[edit]

text:
Josh Stewart as William LaMontagne Jr.
Kelly Frye as Kristy Simmons
Declan Whaley as David Simmons
Kim Rhodes as Assistant Director Linda Barnes

text: Guest cast[edit]

text:
Bodhi Elfman as Peter Lewis / Mr. Scratch
Tracie Thoms as Monica Walker
Jamie Kennedy as Floyd Feylinn Ferell
Zelda Williams as Melissa Miller
Lou Diamond Phillips as Sheriff Clifford
Gail O'Grady as Krystall Richards
James Urbaniak as Special Agent Owen Quinn
Karen David as Special Agent Mary Meadows
Michael Hogan as Benjamin David Merva

text: Production[edit]

text: Development[edit]

text: Criminal Minds was renewed for a thirteenth season with an episode order of 22 episodes on April 7, 2017.[1][2] The entire main cast from the previous season returned for the season, except Damon Gupton (Stephen Walker), who was fired from the show.[4][5]

text: Matthew Gray Gubler directed the seventeenth episode of the season and it was said to be "the spookiest episode of Season 13" and involved clowns.[7] On August 10, 2017, it was revealed that Aisha Tyler will make her television directing debut and direct the sixth episode of the season.[8] On August 12, 2017 it was revealed that Erica Messer and Kirsten Vangsness will be co-writing the eleventh episode of the season, which will be the fourth episode they have co-written together.[9] On October 31, 2017, it was announced that Adam Rodriguez will make his Criminal Minds directing debut and direct the sixteenth episode of the season.[10]

text: Casting[edit]

text: On June 11, 2017, it was announced that Damon Gupton had been let go from the show after one season.[4] CBS said his departure was "part of a creative change on the show".[4][5] His character Stephen Walker was killed off-screen in the season premiere. In May 2018, Deadline reported that the real reason  Damon Gupton was let go from the show was because he reportedly stole stuff from the set and threatened some of the cast members.

text: On June 20, 2017, CBS announced that Daniel Henney, who was a series regular on Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders as Matt Simmons,  would join the main show as a series regular for the thirteenth season.[11]

text: On October 12, 2017, it was announced that Shemar Moore would reprise his role as Derek Morgan in the fifth episode of the season ("Lucky Strikes"). His character returned to help Penelope Garcia get through a tough time.[12]

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
No.overallNo. inseasonTitleDirected byWritten byOriginal air dateProd.codeUS viewers(millions)2781"Wheels Up"Glenn KershawBreen FrazierSeptember 27, 2017 (2017-09-27)13017.00[13]
When escaped serial killer Peter Lewis (Bodhi Elfman) launches a devastating final assault on the BAU and takes one of their own as a hostage, Garcia brings in former International Response Team member Matt Simmons (Daniel Henney) to help apprehend Lewis before more lives are lost.
2792"To A Better Place"Diana C. ValentineBruce ZimmermanOctober 4, 2017 (2017-10-04)13026.17[14]
When suitcases containing human remains are found throughout Naples, Florida, the BAU returns from their bureau-dictated vacation to find a connection between the victims before the killer takes another life. Meanwhile, Reid learns about a condition to his reinstatement and the team officially welcomes Simmons into the fold.
2803"Blue Angel"Sharat RajuChristopher BarbourOctober 11, 2017 (2017-10-11)13045.87[15]
When two businessmen are emasculated in Detroit, Michigan, the BAU investigates a connection between the victims only to discover a family secret that changes the course of the investigation. Meanwhile, Simmons finds himself bonding with an escort involved in the case.
2814"Killer App"Alec SmightStephanie SenGuptaOctober 18, 2017 (2017-10-18)13035.94[16]
When a workplace shooting in Silicon Valley claims the lives of three employees, the BAU works with the Department of Homeland Security to determine if the shooting was personal and why the victims were targeted. Meanwhile, Prentiss confronts Alvez about the events surrounding his final confrontation with Peter Lewis.
2825"Lucky Strikes"Tawnia McKiernanJim ClementeOctober 25, 2017 (2017-10-25)13065.91[17]
When a Florida prostitute is found dead with both legs and several fingers missing, the BAU sets out to determine if cannibalistic serial killer Floyd Feylinn Ferell (Jamie Kennedy) has embarked on another spree or if a copycat killer is responsible. Meanwhile, former SSA Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) helps Garcia when she becomes overwhelmed by memories of a ten-year-old trauma.
2836"The Bunker"Aisha TylerKaren MaserNovember 8, 2017 (2017-11-08)13055.50[18]
When a missing persons case is connected to a series of abductions throughout Virginia, the BAU sets out to find a connection between the victims only to unearth an unusual motive. Meanwhile, JJ connects with a woman who believes her sister's disappearance may be connected to the investigation and Garcia searches for a new apartment.
2847"Dust and Bones"Marcus StokesErica MeredithNovember 15, 2017 (2017-11-15)13075.64[19]
When two women are abducted and permanently disfigured in Austin, Texas, the BAU determines that the attacker has a dangerous obsession with a vicious creature. Meanwhile, Alvez struggles to find a way to help his former Fugitive Task Force partner come to terms with his paralysis.
2858"Neon Terror"Bethany RooneyErik StillerNovember 22, 2017 (2017-11-22)13086.31[20]
When the latest in a series of robbery-homicides occurs in Miami, Florida, the BAU investigates only to suspect that they are dealing with an unsub who seeks attention by releasing footage of his crimes to the media.
2869"False Flag"Joe MantegnaBreen FrazierDecember 6, 2017 (2017-12-06)13095.34[21]
When two members of a Roswell, New Mexico conspiracy theory group die in quick succession, the BAU suspects that the crimes were committed by a serial killer only to find themselves reexamining the evidence following a catastrophic encounter. Meanwhile, Lewis struggles to keep her emotions in check as she interrogates a young podcaster (Zelda Williams) with ties to the group.
28710"Submerged"Rob BaileyBruce ZimmermanJanuary 3, 2018 (2018-01-03)13105.41[22]
When the latest in a series of perplexing robbery-homicides occurs in Ramona, California, the BAU works with a frustrated sheriff (Lou Diamond Phillips) to track down a serial killer with mysterious motives and an even more mysterious past.
28811"Full-Tilt Boogie"Simon MirrenErica Messer & Kirsten VangsnessJanuary 10, 2018 (2018-01-10)13115.70[23]
When the wife of a Virginia police chief survives a brutal home invasion-homicide, the BAU coordinates with her husband and the local authorities to catch her attempted killer only to uncover a multitude of secrets being kept by the town's inhabitants.
28912"Bad Moon on the Rise"Christoph SchreweKaren MaserJanuary 17, 2018 (2018-01-17)13125.63[24]
When the gruesome murder of a New York City jogger is connected to a series of equally gruesome murder-mutilations, the BAU searches Central Park for a killer who may be suffering from a syndrome that makes him believe he is a gruesome monster. Meanwhile, Alvez deals with the fallout of a blind date gone wrong.
29013"Cure"Glenn KershawChristopher BarbourJanuary 24, 2018 (2018-01-24)13135.30[25]
When a cryptic message is found inside the mouth of a Washington, D.C. financier, the BAU sets out to catch a serial killer determined to eradicate institutions of power. Meanwhile, JJ grows increasingly concerned after receiving an email asking her to sit down with Assistant Director Linda Barnes (Kim Rhodes).
29114"Miasma"Leon IchasoErica MeredithJanuary 31, 2018 (2018-01-31)13145.42[26]
When a mass grave is uncovered in a New Orleans cemetery, the BAU searches for a killer who sees himself as a modern-day plague doctor. Meanwhile, Prentiss finds herself forced to endure a hostile interrogation after Barnes suspends her from active duty and summons her for an internal audit.
29215"Annihilator"Rob BaileyErik StillerMarch 7, 2018 (2018-03-07)13155.04[27]
With Prentiss still suspended from active duty and Reid refusing to work without her, Barnes takes the lead and joins the remaining members of the BAU as they search St. Louis for the perpetrator of a quadruple homicide. Meanwhile, Reid attempts to dissuade Prentiss from making a bold decision.
29316"Last Gasp"Adam RodriguezStephanie SenGuptaMarch 14, 2018 (2018-03-14)13165.69[28]
In the wake of Barnes' attempt to restructure the BAU, the divided team works behind her back to identify a serial abductor who photographs Washington, D.C. call girls before killing them and incinerating their bodies.
29417"The Capilanos"Matthew Gray GublerErica MesserMarch 21, 2018 (2018-03-21)13175.26[29]
When a seven-year-old child residing in Guymon, Oklahoma claims a man dressed as a clown killed his father, the BAU attempts to determine whether or not the child's statement is true.
29518"The Dance of Love"Joe MantegnaBruce ZimmermanMarch 28, 2018 (2018-03-28)13186.59[30]
When two women residing in Chicago, Illinois are stabbed to death on consecutive nights and found with a single red rose in their mouths, the BAU searches for a serial killer with unexpected motives. Meanwhile, Rossi takes personal time off after receiving a phone call from his third ex-wife Krystall (Gail O'Grady).
29619"Ex Parte"Lily MariyeChristopher BarbourApril 4, 2018 (2018-04-04)13195.90[31]
When a hostage situation takes place at the Washington, D.C. law firm where Simmons' wife Kristy (Kelly Frye) works, the BAU juggles resolving the unfolding crisis and determining the perpetrators' motives.
29720"All You Can Eat"Diana C. ValentineKaren MaserApril 11, 2018 (2018-04-11)13205.20[32]
When two sudden deaths in Virginia are believed to be acts of bioterrorism, the BAU works with the CDC to prevent a large-scale incident from taking place. Meanwhile, Garcia reunites with her stepbrother Carlos (Sebastian Sozzi) after learning that the drunk driver who killed their parents is eligible for parole.
29821"Mixed Signals"Alec SmightErica Meredith & Erik StillerApril 18, 2018 (2018-04-18)13215.92[33]
When two people residing in Taos, New Mexico are subjected to crude lobotomies, the BAU suspects the perpetrator is obsessed with proving an inexplicable collection of phenomena exists.
29922"Believer"Glenn KershawBreen FrazierApril 18, 2018 (2018-04-18)13225.39[33]
When a former VICAP agent is found locked inside a storage unit, the BAU investigates his frantic claims of an active serial killer nicknamed "The Strangler" only to find themselves questioning everything they think they know.

tag: table

text: Ratings[edit]

text:
No.

Title

Air date
Rating/share(18–49)
Viewers(millions)
DVR(18–49)
DVR viewers(millions)
Total(18–49)
Total viewers(millions)

1

"Wheels Up"

September 27, 2017
1.3/5
7.00[13]
1.1
4.15
2.4
11.15[34]

2

"To a Better Place"

October 4, 2017
1.1/4
6.17[14]
1.1
3.98
2.2
10.15[35]

3

"Blue Angel"

October 11, 2017
1.1/4
5.87[15]
1.0
3.82
2.1
9.68[36]

4

"Killer App"

October 18, 2017
1.0/4
5.94[16]
1.1
3.87
2.1
9.81[37]

5

"Lucky Strikes"

October 25, 2017
1.0/4
5.91[17]
1.0
3.81
2.0
9.72[38]

6

"The Bunker"

November 8, 2017
0.9/3
5.50[18]
1.0
3.53
1.9
9.03[39]

7

"Dust and Bones"

November 15, 2017
1.0/4
5.64[19]
1.0
3.76
2.0
9.40[40]

8

"Neon Terror"

November 22, 2017
1.0/4
6.31[20]
1.0
3.70
2.0
10.00[41]

9

"False Flag"

December 6, 2017
0.9/4
5.34[21]
1.1
4.04
2.0
9.38[42]

10

"Submerged"

January 3, 2018
0.9/3
5.41[22]
1.1
3.93
2.0
9.37[43]

11

"Full-Tilt Boogie"

January 10, 2018
1.0/4
5.70[23]
1.1
4.13
2.1
9.83[44]

12

"Bad Moon on the Rise"

January 17, 2018
1.0/4
5.63[24]
1.1
4.02
2.1
9.65[45]

13

"Cure"

January 24, 2018
0.9/3
5.30[25]
1.1
4.12
2.0
9.42[46]

14

"Miasma"

January 31, 2018
1.0/4
5.42[26]
1.0
3.90
2.0
9.32[47]

15

"Annihilator"

March 7, 2018
0.9/3
5.05[27]
1.0
4.06
1.9
9.11[48]

16

"Last Gasp"

March 14, 2018
0.9/4
5.69[28]
1.2
4.16
2.1
9.85[49]

17

"The Capilanos"

March 21, 2018
0.9/4
5.26[29]
1.1
3.94
2.0
9.20[50]

18

"The Dance of Love"

March 28, 2018
1.1/5
6.59[30]
0.9
3.54
2.0
10.13[51]

19

"Ex Parte"

April 4, 2018
1.0/4
5.90[31]
1.0
3.71
2.0
9.62[52]

20

"All You Can Eat"

April 11, 2018
0.9/4
5.20[32]
1.0
3.94
1.9
9.14[53]

21

"Mixed Signals"

April 18, 2018
1.0/4
5.92[33]
0.8
3.05
1.8
8.97[33]

22

"Believer"

April 18, 2018
0.9/4
5.39[33]
0.8
3.35
1.7
8.74[33]

text: Home media[edit]

text:
The Complete Thirteenth Season

Set details

Special features

22 episodes
6-disc set (Region 1)
5-disc set (Region 2 & 4)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Subtitles: English
English: Dolby Digital 5.1

Getting Lucky
Bunker Mentality
Breaking Up The BAU
The Table Read: Mixed Signals
Thirteen Minds
Would You Make A Good FBI Agent?
Pilot Episode of "SEAL Team"
Pilot Episode of "Bull"
Gag Reel
Deleted Scenes

DVD release date

Region 1

Region 2

Region 4

August 28, 2018 (2018-08-28)[54]

TBA

TBA